'I don’t care about valuations,' says Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu

Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of Chennai-based Software as a Service (SaaS) firm Zoho Corp, in an exclusive conversation with Udayan Mukherjee, global business editor, India Today TV said that his value systems come from his grandparents and reveals the big reason for not borrowing from VCs.

“My father turned 80 but we didn’t have any big celebration and just performed a puja at the temple. That’s the type of person my parents are and they still rethink the exact life they had before all the success happened and that exactly is the role model for me. That is what I have imbibed from my parents-the humility," he said.

When asked for the reason for not borrowing from venture capital funds, Vembu said, "Involving VCs would’ve meant an exit. Going private gives us great freedom. VCs force investments in sales and marketing. Our focus is on R&D and long-term growth and investing profits back into expansion. We prefer to be private and avoid QoQ pressure and we don’t want to report to shareholders."

On being asked how important is valuation of a startup for him, he answered that he doesn’t care at all about valuation. “I have never paid any attention to that at all. What matters to me is do we have the exact amount of resources in place to invest and grow steadily. Valuations disappear all the time and I have stayed away from value bubbles. I also keep in mind whether the products are in fusion and whether employees are happy or not. We keep our customers happy. Those concerns matter to me.”

When asked about businessmen’s public display of wealth, he added, “ We are the custodians of wealth, Gandhiji said this and he was never a socialist. I see it like that. We are merely custodians and we get to direct it to good causes. That’s how I look at it. Our value system advises moderation."